Front yard, from the old cedar cabin being refurbished into a writing retreat

Beloved screened-in porch, well used three seasons of the year;

canoe restored by hand by Kate's husband

Kate, what does home mean to you?

Home is peepers and log piles, wild blackberries and fog banks. Home smells like woodsmoke. I love that the streets of this seaside town belonged to my ancestors of two hundred and fifty years ago—bookended by the same salty ropes and tar on docks, rooted in the musty comfort of a house that shifts and creaks during nor'easter storms.

That's not to say home is contented. Is it ever, really, for anyone? Here, along the craggy shore of my birth, I am settled. But my god, how I lust for the mountains, for the west coast where I spent a decade learning how to stretch out in this skin. And so to be home is to feel both embraced and unhinged, in familiar love with this, yet constantly seeking the horizon for snow-capped peaks.

Ahh, well. I shrug and inhale and the what-ifs pass, brushed aside by scotch mist and atlantic swell. For that is home, I'd say: whatever place manages to eclipse our natural-born restlessness.

About Kate Inglis:

Kate Inglis of sweet | salty

Kate Inglis of sweet | salty is a writer, photographer and mother to three boys—one of whom exists as memory, figment and technicolour eyes. After starting her blog in 2004 prior to the birth of her first son, Kate's writing chugged along uneventfully until her second pregnancy, identical twins, ended with their catastrophic birth three months early. One son survived and one did not.

Since then, she has written her first novel to be published in fall 2009, founded Glow in the Woods, a community and collaborative blog for babylost parents, and joined the crew of Shutter Sisters, a collective celebrating women photographers.

Kate lives on the edge of a meat-grinder sea on the far eastern coastline of Nova Scotia. She can show you where they used to hang pirates and where you can step barefoot on dead jellyfish for cheap thrills.

Kate, as always, your words send me spinning in beauty, imagination, and memory. Thank you so much for sharing.

Readers, come back tomorrow and all month long to enjoy lots of wonderful moms talking about home life.